


Your Face

by flippyspoon



Series: Pour Some Sugar on Me [26]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pre-Slash, i mean they're in love they're just dumb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-07 01:24:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16844341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flippyspoon/pseuds/flippyspoon





	Your Face

Steve is Billy’s best friend, his buddy, his pal, his amigo. Billy likes to remind Steve of this when he is very drunk just before getting all sulky about the fight at the Byers’ and apologizing for the hundredth time. Steve is amused by it at this point. Steve seems amused by it Friday night when get wasted together and Billy gives him a call on Saturday; Steve is hungover and complaining of a stomach ache. Then Billy doesn’t hear from him again all day Sunday and resists the urge to call and check on Steve. But on Monday he goes to the mall and finds out Steve has called out sick.

Billy decides he will just go check on Steve real quick. Billy has seen him with a flu before since Steve is shitty at taking care of himself sometimes and his parents are never around. Steve tried to fight demodogs with the flu once before fainting right there in the woods which sparked an adrenaline rush in Billy who took out five of the fucking things before throwing Steve over his shoulder and taking him home, reading him the riot act the whole time.

Billy doesn’t bother knocking anymore, he just barges in.

He finds Steve on the kitchen floor, half-conscious.

It feels like Billy’s heart falls right through the linoleum.

“Steve! Holy shit!”

Steve moans. Well, he isn’t dead.

“It…it hurts,” Steve manages to whisper. He is deathly pale and sweaty. “Uh…”

“I’m calling an ambulance,” Billy says. “Where the hell are your parents?”

“I dunno.”

Burst appendix, the doctors say later. Steve is lying on a gurney, waiting for surgery, and Billy has seen Steve stare down a half dozen demogorgons but he’s never seen Steve look this scared before.

“Billy. Dude. I don’t wanna get surgery. Tell them I don’t want it.”

Billy almost laughs at that. “Yeah well, it’s this or die, amigo. Sorry, man. What’s the big deal? This shit is totally routine. It’s just an appendix. It’s not like ya need it.”

“People die in surgeries all the time!” Steve reaches through the bars of the gurney and grabs at Billy’s jacket. “They put you _under_. You can go into a coma!”

“I don’t-”

“I’ve had these nightmares I fall asleep and I never wake up,” Steve says, whispering furiously. “I’m just like trapped in the dark and it’s like the tunnels except I’m alone but I can hear _them_ -”

“Whoa whoa whoa.” Billy shakes his head. Steve is crying now. He hates that. Billy cries all the time himself, but Steve only does if he’s really upset or freaked out. He hates seeing Steve cry. “Hey, hey it’s okay. You’re gonna wake up. Dude, I promise.”

“Will you… Will you be there when I wake up?” Steve chokes out.

“Yeah, man.” Billy nods emphatically. “‘Course I will. I’ll be right here. This’ll be the first mug you see. Don’t I always have your back, Harrington?”

“Yeah,” Steve says, sniffing. “Yeah, you do. Could you… Could you hold my hand?”

“Yeah,” Billy says softly, and finds Steve’s hand. Steve grips Billy’s hand like it’s necessary to live. “Harrington. _Steve_. Listen, it’ll be scary for a minute, yeah? Like when we’re in the woods and it’s quiet and we know they’re there but we can’t see em’. And then it starts, right? And it’s scary as shit but then before you know it, we’re eating pizza at Casa Harrington, yeah? Except this’ll be easier. They’ll knock you out, you won’t even know you’re asleep. I had my tonsils out once, it was just like that. Then you’ll wake up and I’ll be right there. I promise. Okay?”

He squeezed Steve’s hand and Steve said, “Okay.”

Billy held Steve’s hand until the doctors came and he kept his eyes on Steve while they rolled him into the OR and when Steve woke up, Billy was the first person he saw.

“Hey amigo,” Billy said, smiling because Steve looked like he was high as hell. “Toldja you’d make it.”

“Yeah, I made it,” Steve murmured, grinning at drunkenly at Billy. “I just thought of your face. And it was okay.”


End file.
